Copyright applies upon tangible fixation. In this episode, we will examine what is meant by “fixation,” including the question of whether a copy of a work in RAM is tangibly fixed.
Note: Due to temporary technical issues, this episode lacks an intro and outro (they will be provided shortly).
Copyright in the United States is affected by both the Federal Constitution, and international law such as the Berne Convention. Additionally, international law is often used to justify increases in rights for the sake of “harmonization.” We conclude this last introductory episode by briefly comparing and contrasting several areas of the law that are often lumped together as “intellectual property.”
Note: Due to temporary technical issues, this episode lacks an intro and outro (they will be provided shortly).
Copyright applies to a wide variety of works, even types of expression that are newly created (and not explicitly referenced in the copyright act). However, some items of “intellectual creation” are outside of copyright, such as ideas or works of the federal government. We conclude this episode by exploring how to analyze a given situation, to determine whether copyright prevents a new use.
Note: Due to temporary technical issues, this episode lacks an intro and outro (they will be provided shortly).
In this, the first episode of Copyright Law, we begin a high-level overview of what copyright is. Almost everyone is a copyright holder, with specific exclusive rights over their original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium. We close this episode with a look at three views of the justification for copyright.
Note: Due to temporary technical issues, this episode lacks an intro and outro (they will be provided shortly).
Copyright is not the only law you have to be aware of when considering whether or not to use a work. Patents, trademarks, trade secrets, contracts, and other issues may provide an additional “layer of protection” beyond just copyright.
Fair Use is not the only limitation or exception to the exclusive rights of copyright. In this episode, Prof. Crews walks through several other limitations and exceptions.
In this final episode on Fair Use, Prof. Crews reviews and wraps up Fair Use. Additionally, Prof. Crews discusses hard and fast “guidelines” that are often promulgated in the fields of education and libraries.
Fair Use provides guidelines, but very few hard and fast rules. As an example, sometimes using large amounts of a copyrighted work (perhaps even all of the copyrighted work) will qualify as a Fair Use, while sometimes using only a small amount of a copyrighted work will not qualify as Fair Use. As several cases show, the key is that all four of the factors must be considered.
In this second episode of Fair Use, Prof. Crews examines two actual court cases applying Fair Use. The first case concerns photocopying by Kinko’s, and the second case concerns 2 Live Crew’s parody of the song “Pretty Woman.”
The “exclusive rights” of copyright aren’t exactly exclusive. There are numerous exceptions and limitations to these rights, with Fair Use being the most important of these. In this first episode on Fair Use, Prof. Crews examines the four statutory factors of Fair Use.